As most people know, similar issues exist in France as philosophies of multiculturalism, assimilition-ism (if one could call is that), laïcité, and so on jostle for primacy. Issues are often sparked by the presence of large Muslim minorities here. (‘Minorities’ and not ‘minority’ because they come from many other countries and different cultures of Islam. And there are plenty of second generation Muslims, too.) I also say ‘presence,’ because it is not necessarily the minorities that create problems, but their presence within the social body. Conflicts come from within and without.

Some French think that  Americans have too stark and simplified a view of the problems of integration in France – and that the history of American immigration is too different from their own to be comparable. This is probably true, although I have found many French people to be prickly and defensive about the issue, largely because so many negative attitudes have been expressed in the American media about the suppression of veil in schools and state buildings (and about Sarkozy, although I see little love for the president in my university). They see that Americans focus on one small issue only, ignoring the larger picture.

It should be said that conflicts in Western countries about multiculturalism and tolerance frequently arise around women – whether about the veil or the too-sexy Brooklyn biker. I believe that this is because Western governments – and peoples – are trying to negotiate a tricky problem. Must they tolerate cultural differences when those differences tend to repress women in a way that dominant culture does not accept? And should they weed out cultural or religious practices that do so? The issue becomes one of degree – authorities (and citizens) would not respect the rights of a population living within U.S. borders that allowed the stoning of female adulterers. But it is impossible to step into homes where women are prevented from voting, say, if they do not make a formal complaint to authorities. And the issue is not just one of law – of course beating women is against the law, but it also goes against fundamental philosophies in our culture about what is acceptable and about the limits of tolerance. The government will let Native Americans “poach” certain animals and not be prosecuted (the controversial ‘eagle feather law’) – so we do allow (and even legislate, paradoxically) the breaking of some laws. But the government has recently cracked down on polygamy among Mormon fundamentalists – a practice that seemed to be tacitly tolerated – mostly because of the possibility of underage girls being married off, not so much because of the act of polygamy itself. (To be clear, the practice has not been officially tolerated by the LDS or the government for a century.) Nonetheless, the latter issue is less one of violence and more one of philosophy – and even of a certain squeamishness, of discomfort.

I think that we need more intellectual input on these problems – in part, because so many of them are hard to legislate, and harder to enforce. At a certain point, we reach a wall of philosophic difference – and isn’t that point where intellectuals come in, where think-tanks are formed, where lawyers, politicians, and police are insufficient? This was something that the French have always understood well – they see that intellectuals are a fundamental part of politics and that they are engaged in a way that doesn’t happen nearly as much in the U.S. I would say that the most influential books in the realm of engaged thinking, if we can use this umbrella term, tend to come from law professors and, oh-so-occasionally, breakout names in the humanities. Journalists have a monopoly on the loudspeaker – and now journalistic or para-journalistic blogs. When do the philosophers get their turn at the podium?

Sadly, Michel Zink, one of our great medievalists, is not giving a course this year, but all of the sessions of “Lire un texte vieilli au Moyen Âge à nos jours” are available online. (Sweeeet! *Throws devil horns*)

This was originally going to be my first commentary on Parisian life, but I never got around to writing it. I also wondered if I was crazy. But last night, a friend confirmed that he in fact had the same perception of … Parisian space.

Parisian space is strange – not in the MC Escher sense – but strange for Americans and Brits, at least. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that so much of the city dates from the 19th century – and much of it, like parts of the Marais, to far longer ago than that. Perhaps it has to do with the necessity of spatial economy, as my friend suggested. Basically, it is possible to walk down an anonymous seeming street one day, a street marked by no particularly interesting shops or signs of life, and see no one. Pass at a different hour the next day, and the streets will be swarmed with smoking teenagers in tight cliques, or groups of white-overalled plumbers and painters. You’ll realize, suddenly, that concealed behind that non-descript gray wall, with nothing but a small bronze plaque by the door, is a large high school. Or a hotel particulier that is being restored.

There are the great bustling boulevards, of course, and streets jammed with tourists, and grand cathedrals, and dingy college buildings. But for much of the city, the space can be astonishingly private – turtling deeply into its own life.

In the summer, the voices coming from behind the walls reach the outside and give a comforting sense of that inner life, being lived away from prying eyes. Sometimes you’ll see someone cooking or watching The Simpsons as you look through the white lace curtain of their ground floor apartment. But in the winter, the anonymity of those side streets sometimes gives me a chill.

Anyway, after having enjoyed great exhibits in Berlin (“Die Kunst ist Super!”), at the Cluny in Paris, and so on, I visited the Orsay during one of the busiest times of the year – just after Christmas. I have a bachelor’s degree in art history, which, while not all that impressive in the real world, at least established in me an appreciation of art and a solid grounding in its history (duh!). I am also a tourist-hater. I don’t hate tourism per se, but rather detest the stupid things that tourists do. Why did you bring a baby to the Louvre? Seriously, why?

This collection of facts sets up my main point – the Orsay, being overrun with ignorant tourists all jostling for a glimpse at van Gogh’s self-portrait, because it’s famous and recognizable and pretty, was the site of one of the most nauseating demonstrations of the effects of modern digital culture I have yet seen. Social networking? Great. Party photos? Fine. Digital retouching? Whatever. But everyone – and I do mean an overwhelming majority of the spectators – were shooting digital photos of all the most famous paintings. And I had to ask myself – why?

I mean, I’m sure that in the days before digital photography, people took photos of paintings in museums to show to their friends and put in their boring slide-shows, but I did the whole European tour thing before digital cameras were big and I can’t remember anything like this. Moreover, people have to do that whole idiotic-looking, no-viewfinder thing with their cameras – where they hold it up several inches from their faces and peer into the screen. Hey, everybody! You look stupid!

So, the first questions: Why the hell do you want a crappy digital photo of a painting when you can get a nice postcard in the gift shop? Or an exhibition catalogue? And who wants to see your photos of a van Gogh painting anyway? Your Facebook friends? Doubtful. Is it just to prove that you were there?

I think that it is, in part, a way for people to prove that they did something (anything!) and to show their friends the cool things that they saw on their trip. And when one is traveling, this is not at all a bad motivation. I get it. But I think that the second aspect of the phenomenon indicates that for people who don’t know much about art and therefore gravitate towards things that they recognize, taking photos gives them something to do with their hands. That is to say, unsure of how to appreciate a painting or to enjoy it, they demonstrate, both to themselves and others, that they are really looking at it. By shooting it with their camera – while looking through the screen. I’m not putting down the unwashed masses here – American education, for instance, is woefully lacking in classes on art, art appreciation, or art history. So how can we expect most people to really know art or to develop personal tastes and interests? I could go on, but I think the action speaks largely for itself.

Finally, and perhaps this point is overdetermined and needs little exposition from me, people are using digital cameras to look at paintings THROUGH A SCREEN. Have we reached a point in computer culture or the digital age or whatever where people can only use their visual capacities when looking through a screen? A TV screen? An iPhone screen? A computer screen? A screen is called a screen for a reason – it means “a barrier.” And yes, it has been adopted to mean, originally, a surface for projection of images, and later for the display of images from an internal source – but any screen, whether receiving a projected image or projecting a digital image, reduces the amount of visual information received by the eye. So anyone looking at a painting through a digital camera (or a digital photo) is getting far less visual information than from direct looking. Have we all become Proust’s Marcel, our visual world a place of sensory overload, using our cameras like his screening fingers to shut out some of the beauty of the hawthorns? If only it were that poetic.

Sick, people. Sick.

I pick out two clementines. The guy guarding the fruit says-

“Ah, des vitamines!” (Oh, vitamins!)

I say – “Mais oui, quand il fait un temps comme ça…” (Well sure, when the weather is like this…)

“C’est chiant, les vitamines…” (Vitamins suck – literally, they’re shitty – …)

“Um… mais non, les fruits et les légumes…baah… ils sont délicieux.” (Um…well no, fruits and vegetables are delicious.)

“Soixante-dix euros.” (Seventy euros)

“Um…”

“Seventy-three euros.” (He says in English.)

So I give him seventy-three centimes. Bear with me here.

“Mais non, c’est trop, c’est pour ça que j’ai dit soixante-dix euros.”

“OK.”

And then I took my three centimes and left. Joking about a seventy euro clementine, not that funny, trying to clarify by telling me the wrong number in English, still not that funny.

I hate you. That is how I lost my front teeth when I was 18 – I went through the turnstile at the same time as my friend to save the fare and got smashed in the face with the steel door. Talk about instant karma. I swallowed all the little bitty pieces of my chompers. Now I cover my mouth all the way until I get to the platform.

People like you are the reason I can’t love public transportation.

-S

PS – Big shout-out to the elderly Asian couple on the train that cornered a group of 4 tween girls who had stolen the husband’s wallet. I wouldn’t have had the guts. Then the subway police came and it was a total circus! You two really cheered me up after the turnstile incident.

Cute French cartoons (with dildos!) at Olivia à Paris

and Garance Doré, which I’ve somehow missed out on all this time!

I’m in the states for the holidays. Lots of new things when I get back in a week.

-Moi

Anyway, in Paris it’s tough, which is strange. Obviously, we have a vision of Paris as home to a glitzy nightlife – and certainly it is. But how many of us would participate or COULD participate in that? Discothèques and nice clubs are very expensive and often have that meat-market feel. Not my cup of tea. So I’ve been going to small, wonderful wine parties with friends, featuring more great conversation and practice for my argot (slang) than glamour. Nonetheless, I was excited to go to my first real nighttime excursion at the Point Éphémère. You see, I’m very easily excited.

The Point, from what I hear, used to be the place to go for the, ahem, music-y and boho scene. Many of the best (in my opinion) concerts from American and British bands. I imagine it’s something like the status of Sonar in Baltimore – it’s caché has decreased, but it still gets a lot of the great shows. This is all secondhand knowledge, unfortunately. There’s a couple of similar places – the Flèche d’Or, for instance. And this looks fascinating.

But before this red-letter night arrived, I was invited to the Opéra Bastille to see La Bohème. My friend had to wait 2 hours in the cold for standing-room-only seats. For every performance there are about 60 standing room tickets – and the view from those loges are great, but you can’t see the supertitles. Luckily, I had my own narrator. It was a great show – Musette in particular was amazing, played by Natalie Dessay, who is something of a French star. The impressive façade, extraordinarily modern, dominates one side of the huge Place de la Bastille.

And then, the Point Éphémère – it’s an approximation of an American joint in Paris, on the line of The Middle East in Cambridge, the Ottobar in Baltimore, and probably 20 different places in Brooklyn. Ahem, again. Anyway, it’s on the Canal St. Martin, a stretch home to a number of neat dives, gay bars, a hostel/pub, and so on. The restaurant/bar area was packed and there is a terrace right on the “water” – the skanky canal water, that is. Nonetheless, there is a gritty kind of atmosphere to the location. Finding it is a little scary, as you have to descend onto the quai, seemingly into the canal itself. It’s in an old factory, next to a fire station, so the fire trucks blaze by, nearly missing loitering smokers, and police boats streak down the canal with their sirens on. The food, however, is greasy and gorgeous and I can’t wait to go back for a burger. The concert space is standard for any small rock venue, painted black, a counter selling pints of Hoegaarden, etc. All in all, a fine time, a far cry from the glitz of the opera, but a nice dose of home.

For some things, the bad weather only increases their somber beauty:

Ominous, ominous clouds, which are now emitting torrents of rain, accompanied by gale force winds. Oh, did I already say that my dorm windows leak? Yeah. Back to bed.